Traffic: Horses are on the New England Highway west of Cessnock Road. Emergency services are also on scene at Croudace Bay Road near Green Point Drive in Belmont after a car and bicycle collided.

Beachwatch: Once again we’ll have mainly onshore winds and poor quality waves however the northern protected corners are showing signs of improvement. The wind will north-east with the swell from the east-north-east around 1 to 2 metres. Around town try Newcastle, South Bar and Redhead. Down south try North Catho and Soldiers and at port Stephens try Samurai and Birubi. Most beaches will have sweeps to the south and there are a few bluebottles around so be extra careful if swimming. The water temperature is 21 degrees.

Trains: The 6:42am Gosford to Hamilton has been cancelled due to an operational issue at Gosford. Passengers can catch the 5:45am Central to Hamilton instead. Passengers should allow additional travel time, listen to announcements and check station indicator boards.

Hunter headlines

SEARCH efforts have resumed on Monday morning for a man who was washed off rocks at a beach in Newcastle overnight. Read more.

CHILDREN as young as 18 months old are presenting to John Hunter Children’s Hospital as overweight or obese. Read more.

TENSIONS over the running of the November Supercars race in Newcastle have ratcheted up another gear, with lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes telling NSW Tourism Minister Adam Marshall she doesn’t believe Destination NSW is doing a good enough job managing the event. Read more.

Three men of league – Alex McKinnon, Damian Jobson and Troy Miles – together in the same room, trading stories, with familiarity. Read more.

THE owner of East Maitland institution The Bearded Cactus is closing the cafe to “refocus and realign”. Read more

Todd, Dr Bloomfield, this is MADNESS, and you must both know it. Read more.

National news

Spanish tourist Gonzalo Mompo Fernandez shows the teeth marks in his wetsuit after being nipped by a shark at The Farm on Sunday. Picture : Sylvia Liber

►ILLAWARRA: A Spanish tourist has had a lucky escape after he was bitten on the bottom by a shark while boogie-boarding at The Farm on Sunday evening. Read more

► UNANDERRA: “When I saw the drain … I was searching and I saw it and I knew then," she said.

Thursday night at the Teasdale family home in Unanderra was long and excruciating.

Melissa Teasdale with her son Ryan. Photo: Vimeo

Outside, the gutters babbled with racing stormwater. A relentless sheet of rain pelted the plastic coats of the grave-faced police and SES volunteers gathered two streets away, at the opening to a stormwater drain. Read more

Leanne Kettlewell from Bendigo and her sister Jenny Harvey from Gisborne walked in memory of Jenny's daughter. Pictures: DARREN HOWE

► BENDIGO: It was a simple stroll around Rosalind Park, but for hundreds of people at the Suicide Prevention Awareness Network walk on Sunday it was an emotional roller coaster. Read more

► NORTH EAST: A Chiltern man is facing up to 10 years in jail for allegedly importing a child sex doll from China. Read more

► LAUNCESTON: A Launceston father and son have had health struggles and felt forgotten while waiting for medical action. Stuart Lade was brutally assaulted in late 2013, deforming his nasal passage. Stuart’s father, John Lade, visited the same doctor three weeks later because of infected sinuses. The GP recommended the RHH to have his sinuses drained and he was also referred to the RHH. But progress stalled and both men are yet to undergo their surgeries. Read more

ON SITE: The Northern Territory's panel of scientific experts visited a Santos gas well earlier this year. Picture: supplied.

► NORTHERN TERRITORY: Some are calling it the Battle for Beetaloo. Beetaloo is an energy-rich El Dorado, a little known region in the remote Australian outback which, according to miners, can solve Australia’s natural gas problems for the next 30 years if not longer. Read more

Nationals senator John Williams in his office at Parliament House. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

► INVERELL: Nationals senator John "Wacka" Williams has revealed he has Parkinson's disease, a degenerative condition that has begun to affect his mobility. Read more

National news

►Migrants are being warned that "practices and behaviours that undermine" Australian values and sense of "fair go" have no place in Australia, in a new government multicultural statement to be released today. Read more

► Sensitive employment data on another 53,000 federal public servants may have been supplied to a private firm conducting workplace ballots without the knowledge or consent of the workers. Read more

►Scott Morrison is planning to push the so-called "Google Tax" through Parliament. Read more

►Voters in some of the most conservative seats in Australia overwhelmingly support legalising same-sex marriage in 2017, according to a decisive new poll of a dozen Coalition seats. Read more

National weather radar

What’s coming your way ...

International news

►DELHI: Going on stage at school and acting out scenes from your home life can uncover hidden truths. The stage at Prerna School for Girls in Lucknow is the place where the performers - girls from poor families in the surrounding slums - suddenly realise they are unequal. Read more

Prerna Girls School and one of the slum where the children come from. Photo: Moni Kannaujia

►DILI: The front-runner to be elected East Timor's president at elections on Monday has offered new hope for a breakthrough with Australia in a bitter stand-off over $40 billion in oil and gas fields. Read more

Fretilin the country's largest political party, staged its closing campaign rally in Dili on the 17th March. Photo:Wayne Lovell/Timor Photography Photo: Wayne Lovell

►BEIJING: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has appeared with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to say the two countries share the view that tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached "a rather dangerous level". Read more

On this day

1602: The Dutch East India company, which was indirectly responsible for many discoveries in the Pacific, is formed.